Teachers’ voices and needs are often overshadowed by the push to ensure student well-being. Responsible for educating the youth and providing new generations with the tools needed to problem-solve while also navigating boatloads of work, relatively low base salaries, and the pressures of parent expectations, teachers are the unsung heroes carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. Yet, in spite of their indispensable role in society, teachers’ mental health is often overlooked.
Between managing multiple classes, thoughtfully grading hundreds of assignments, attending countless district and departmental meetings, designing robust lesson plans, and fielding a barrage of questions from students and parents, teachers’ lives are packed. According to a 2022 review conducted by researchers Kristen Ferguson and Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, published in the Journal of Teaching and Learning, teachers grapple with one of the greatest amounts of job stress and burnout among working individuals. Although this study found that minimal doses of healthy stress, referred to as eustress, augmented work performance, too much can become difficult to manage. In a 2023 nationwide survey conducted by the nonprofit research and design think tank called RAND, 27% of a sample of roughly 1,400 teachers stated the quantity of work they received was their number one stressor, further showcasing the impact of teachers’ busy schedules on their well-being. In addition, according to a 2024 RAND survey, teachers were working for an average of 53 hours per week — nine hours more per week than similar working adults. For context, considering that adults sleep for an average of eight hours per day, spend 1.5 hours of their day taking care of meals, hygiene, and exercise — as determined by a United States Department of Agriculture questionnaire — and allocate around one hour for short breaks, the data from the 2024 RAND survey demonstrates that 52% of teachers’ time undedicated to basic necessities is used for work.
On top of the amount of work teachers must grapple with, low teacher base earnings may exacerbate their emotional struggles. In the 2023 RAND study, 38% of teachers claimed their salary was “completely inadequate.” Since income is the key to unlocking the lifestyle that one wants to lead, and purchasing power is a crucial component of an individual’s quality of life, the low salaries for teachers compromise their financial condition and contribute to further stress for educators.
Considering the aforementioned circumstances marring teacher well-being, overwhelming expectations from school communities can be the final blow. A study conducted by consultant company McKinsey illustrates that 31% of teachers’ resignations are attributed to this issue, showcasing the glaring emotional struggles correlated with handling the sometimes antithetical demands of parents, students, and administrators. At Gunn especially, teachers are in a constant pressure cooker, bombarded frequently by haranguing emails regarding grading policies and teaching approaches. It is worthy to note that student criticism — when thoughtful and genuine — can help teachers acquire detailed, useful feedback, highlighting areas for improvement with their teaching. However, this practice has the potential to create or inflate unkind and unconstructive descriptions of teachers. In certain situations, these descriptions may even stem from an unmet personal desire to preserve academic excellence for the sake of college applications. Teachers constantly being forced to defend themselves against judgment that may not only attack their performance but also their personality is exhausting, nerve-wracking, and anxiety-inducing — parameters that all heavily detract from mental health.
So, what would happen if these factors that negatively affect teacher mental health were better addressed? A systematic review in the 2023 Frontiers in Psychology journal investigated the outcomes of teacher well-being across various studies and noted a correlation between teacher mental health and engagement in students and teachers, quality of instruction, student and school outcomes, among several other metrics. People’s ability to perform is often impacted by their amount of focus and interest towards the tasks at hand, which is dependent upon our energy levels that are dictated by our mood. This relationship further supports the conclusion that an emphasis on teachers’ mental health would not only improve their own experiences in the classroom, but their students’ as well due to emotional contagion — a psychological principle asserting that our emotional state is affected by the emotional state of those around us. Consequently, students would be more likely to engage in material, thus increasing their conceptual understanding and academic performance and better preparing them to navigate the world effectively.
In order to confront many of the prior problems begetting teacher mental health issues, schools, students, parents, and teachers must come together to raise awareness and increase care through policies, initiatives, and gestures. Schools should foster a culture that encourages teachers to share their mental health challenges and work to build strategies to help tackle them by having conversations regarding teacher well-being, investing in staff counseling services, and holding well-being workshops and trainings. In tandem, these experiences should be made optional so teachers who feel they’d like to use their time for other endeavors have the flexibility they desire while others who seek such supports have access to them. Furthermore, schools should strive to make teachers feel comfortable about taking sick days so they can prioritize their health. Potentially, they could set up a more robust substitute system where individuals stepping in for an absent teacher have sufficient background knowledge to field student questions and more adeptly handle the implementation of curriculum.
Students should actively aim to practice empathy with their teachers. For example, student initiatives, like clubs or the Student Executive Council, could look for ways to feature teachers in their promotional content to bolster students’ connections with their professors. Finally, teachers should help uplift one another by developing peer support groups to share strategies for handling workload, stress, and other well-being subtractors and recognize their mental health struggles are valid and deserve to be vocalized, heard, and abated.
